Why Do You Rise?
Each day we leave our homes with a mission, may it be a mission to be the best in life, at work, or with our families, but we leave with a purpose. However, particularly for people of color, on a daily basis, we enter a world where our images aren’t the norm and we encounter a variety of obstacles unknown to many. One morning in the summer of 2010, I had a conversation with a White classmate enrolled in my special education master’s degree program at The George Washington Un
Owning Student Failures: Implications For Effective Parent Teacher Conferences
Sometimes I hear myself and others say, “I can’t get that kid to do any work”. Sometimes I am even guilty of saying, “that kid doesn’t do anything (in class)”. I would even admit that at one point in my career I may have even considered a student to be “lazy” because they fail to hand in assignments. A subtle, but obvious, shift in my thinking helps me manage my approach to how I deal with my most disengaged students. A shift that has made this common frustration far more
Strategies To Maximize Teacher Collaboration
I have been an educator at Hudson High School of Learning Technologies in NYC since its doors opened eight years ago. During the first few years of the school’s existence, a popular saying that my principal often said was “We are building the plane while flying it.” It was true back then, but it’s also still true today. Schools are ever-evolving. We keep the plane flying, changing its design, function and capacity all the time to best suit the needs of our students. COLLABORA
SHARE: How Educators Can (Really, Honestly) Unplug Over Winter Break —And How Stress Affects Us
Between grading papers, planning for the spring, and that extra-special energy students are buzzing with before a break, it’s super difficult for teachers to actually unplug over their break—but it’s so important that we do. Here’s why, followed by tips that will do dedicated educators a lot of good. Remember, self-care is truly an act of kindness to yourself! Read the tips at Concordia Room 241. Written by Jennifer L.M. Gunn
Jennifer L.M. Gunn spent 10 years in newspaper a
SHARE: Setting Up Effective Group Work
Truly collaborative group work is complex and messy, so we have a few tips and tools to get students working interdependently. Research supports what we probably already knew about student collaboration: It’s integral to learning. We know that collaboration helps students build their interpersonal and social and emotional skills. We know that students don’t learn facts in a vacuum; social learning helps them build a more meaningful understanding of the world. Everyone loves c
SHARE: Teacher Efficacy: Why It Matters and How Administrators Can Help
Efficacy—or a teacher’s level of confidence about their ability—can greatly depend on past experiences or on their current school culture. A bad classroom experience or negative work environment, for example, can quickly sour a teacher’s confidence. Conversely, witnessing student growth and working in a collaborative environment can boost a teacher’s belief in their ability and improve performance. As you can imagine, school leaders play a critical role in developing teacher
Teaching: Remember Why We Do This
Three years ago, at just about this time of year, a small crew of us sat on a train headed home from a mind-blowing annual education conference in Philadelphia. The conference, EduCon, is hosted by Science Leadership Academy, a progressive and cutting-edge school led by the brilliant educator/pioneer Chris Lehmann. In an organic moment, the teachers from Hudson High School of Learning Technologies traveling on that Amtrak bounding through the wooded areas of southern New Jers
SHARE: How a Focus on Independent Learning Transformed My Most At-Risk Students
The first time I saw Kevin, he shuffled into my classroom, staring sideways toward the floor. It was the third day of the new school year—he hadn’t made it to my room the first two days. “Hi. You must be Kevin,” I said with a smile. Kevin didn’t look at me. He only grunted a slight noise and looked around for a place to sit. As it turned out, Kevin was mostly non-verbal with emotional and learning disabilities. He was also an apathetic student who lacked the ability and desir
SHARE: 6 Months To Go: A Teacher’s Guide for Winning the 2nd Half of the School Year
It’s January, which means there are six months of classes, lesson planning, meetings, and assessments left. As hardworking educators, we can easily start wishing away the rest of the year to get to summer. But honestly, by maintaining a healthy and clear perspective, there’s no reason that this year couldn’t be your best teaching year yet. Here, you’ll find some simple advice for building and sustaining a positive outlook from now until June. We can do this! Reflect & Renew J
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Essential Strategies for Managing Trauma in the Classroom
Poverty, violence, hunger, abuse, and an unstable world are causing chronic stress for our nation’s kids. And that sad truth is that prolonged exposure to stress can damage the centers of the brain associated with learning, cause behavioral problems, and increase the cycle of violence. Nearly half of the children in the United States, or almost 35 million kids, have experienced “at least one or more types of serious childhood trauma,” according to a survey by the National Sur
Meet the EDxEDNYC Conference Team — Lamar Long
Meet Lamar Long Meet Lamar Long, a member of the EDxEDNYC Conference Team. Lamar is Sponsorship Coordinator for the 2018 conference! The EDxED team is made up of dedicated teachers who started the EDxEDNYC conference years ago to bring together amazing educators for a truly authentic PD experience. The EDxEDNYC Conference is designed for educators by educators. For conference tickets, visit www.edxednyc.com/tickets. Follow Lamar on Twitter @teachLTL #team #conferenceteam #lam
SHARE: Thriving in Your First Years as a Teacher
Six realistic, low-stress steps you can take to improve your teaching in the hectic early years of your career. It is a universal truth that early career teachers are overwhelmed. Between classroom management issues, lesson plans, and grading, we’re oftentimes drowning. With all the pressure to simply survive our first few years of teaching, doing anything else in the name of improvement may seem impossible. As a second-year teacher, I have days when I find myself treating li